Identifying Individuals Through Anonymous DNA

The New York Times has an interesting story about researchers who were able to associate specific individuals with DNA submitted anonymously and made publicly available for medical research purposes.

Now for the big test. On the Web and publicly available are DNA sequences from subjects in the 1000 Genomes Project. People’s ages were included and all the Americans lived in Utah, so the researchers knew their state. 

Dr. Erlich began with one man from the database. He got the Y chromosome’s short tandem repeats and then went to genealogy databases and searched for men with those same repeats. He got surnames of the paternal and maternal grandfather. Then he did a Google search for those people and found an obituary. That gave him the family tree. 

 “Now I knew the whole family,” Dr. Erlich said. And it was so simple, so fast.

“I said, ‘Come on, that can’t be true.’” So he probed and searched and checked again and again. 

“Oh my God, we really did this,” Dr. Erlich said. “I had to digest it. We had so much information.”

Google Releases Transparency Report, Over 15,000 Requests For User Data in U.S.

Google has released its latest Transparency Report.

Google received more than 42,000 requests for user data from governments around the world in 2012.

In the United States, Google received 5,784 requests by subpoena from July through December 2012.  1,896 were by search warrant. 758 were by other means. 

Google complies 88%-90% of the time.

Facebook's Instagram Posts Controversial New Usage Policy

Instagram:

"To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."

"You hereby agree that Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content."

"You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such"

"If you are under the age of eighteen (18)...you represent that at least one of your parents or legal guardians has also agreed to this provision (and the use of your name, likeness, username, and/or photos (along with any associated metadata)) on your behalf"

Privacy groups are pressing the FTC to review the policy change, particularly the provision involving users under 18.

$20 Million Facebook Sponsored Stories Settlement Approved

The District Court judge overseeing the class action suit claiming that Facebook displayed users personal information in connection with its "Sponsored Stories"preliminarily approved a $20 million settlement, to be distributed among affected users, rather than via cy pres distributions.

Privacy Tops Canadian Business' Legal Concerns

Dec. 4 (National Post) -- Borden Ladner Gervais has released its  annual list of the Top 10 Business Issues with Legal Implications. The top 10 business issues include data and privacy; pipelines and politics; the pension storm; the net benefit test  for foreign investment; seeking growth abroad; the pros and  cons of free trade deals; new consumer obligations; corporate  governance issues; and the tax environment.

Swiss Warn of Anti-Terror Data Theft

ZURICH (Reuters) - Secret information on counter-terrorism shared by foreign governments may have been compromised by a massive data theft by a senior IT technician for the NDB, Switzerland's intelligence service, European national security sources said.

 

Possible Change to GLB Requirements This Week

The Hill reports that House of Representatives debated a bill Monday, December 3rd that would relax Gramm-Leach-Bliley, setting up a likely vote on the bill for Tuesday.

The Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act, H.R. 5817, would change the law to require  banks only to notify customers when their privacy policies change, and annually.

 

Facebook Users to Vote on Privacy Practices

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) - Facebook Inc. is letting users vote on whether they should get to cast ballots before future changes to policies for privacy and data-collection, following pressure

from regulators to improve transparency.

 

More than 30 percent of the company’s more than 1 billion members need to vote in favor of retaining their voting rights for Facebook to continue the practice, the Menlo Park, California-based company said in a post on its website. If that threshold isn’t met, Facebook said it would be non-binding.

Hacker Claims to Have Accessed 12 Million Apple IDs Stored on FBI Agent's Laptop

Via CNET:

In all, AntiSec claims to have obtained more than 12 million UDIDs, including user names, addresses, and notification tokens from a laptop used by an FBI agent.

Even though it says it has more than 12 million UDIDs, AntiSec says it settled on posting only 1 million, trimming out personal information such as full names, cell numbers, and addresses.

Assuming this is true, why did an FBI Agent have personal information on 12 million Apple devices stored on a laptop?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57505330-83/antisec-claims-to-have-snatched-12m-apple-device-ids-from-fbi/